CONOR BRADY: A READING IN BAILIEBOROUGH LIBRARY
On Thursday September 6 Conor Brady visited
Bailieborough library for a reading from his recently released novel, “A June of Ordinary Murders”.
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| Fiona Burke introducing Conor Brady |
Bailieborough librarian Fiona Burke welcomed Conor to
our library while pointing out his connection to Cavan (through his
grandfather) and the unexpected meeting earlier in the evening with a cousin of
his.
Once the spotlight turned to Conor Brady he expressed
that he felt honoured to have been included on the Cavan Libraries Summer Reading List. He also said that he is delighted that his first work of fiction
has been such a success.
Before he started reading sections from his book, Mr
Brady explained that an “ordinary murder” is one which has no political
elements as opposed to “special crimes” which are political in nature and
always take precedence over ordinary crimes. The three murders as described in
Conor Brady’s historical mystery all have some basis in real events, although
the account in this book is purely fictional. The same is true for Joe Swallow,
the main character in this book as well as for several other characters on
these pages.
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| Conor Brady |
While reading from his work, Conor Brady picked several
sections from different places in the book. The sections were picked in such a
way that anybody who had not read the book got a good idea of his writing
style, his characters and the setting while it brought back happy reading
memories for those of us who were familiar with the story.
During the question and answer session afterwards one
member of the audience asked if Conor Brady had any idea why so many of our
authors, like John McGahern, seem to have fathers who were Guards. While he
wasn’t sure, Conor suspected that it had a lot to do with the fact that Gardai
had a habit of marrying educated women such as teachers, nurses and librarians
which would have given their children access to education and to books. He also
added that if you add grandfathers to the equation the list of authors with
police connections would be even longer, and include Conor himself.
For me the best news of the evening came at the very
end of the event when Conor Brady revealed that he is working on a second Joe
Swallow mystery which should hopefully be published sometime next year. The
working title for this book is the “The Eloquence of the Dead”. He then read a
short section of the new story for us and I have to admit that this left me
eager to get my hands on it as soon as it will be available.
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| Conor Brady with Marleen Kennedy, Josephine Brady and Fiona Burke |
Overall this was an interesting and very enjoyable
evening for all. As County Librarian Josephine Brady said in her closing words,
Cavan Library Services is very grateful to Conor Brady for taking the time out
of his busy schedule to come and visit us and we hope that he will be coming this
way again in the future.
With thanks to Peter McConnell for the use of two of his pictures.
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